A 40-something Western Canadian who still thinks he's 24. Dreamer, thinker, photographer, traveler, entrepreneur, software developer. Adores women immensely but is still working hard at trying to understand them! :-)

This is my personal blog and primarily focuses on my photography & videography.

Too often these days it seems we all encounter or read about teenagers who are lazy, selfish, or worse. They live their lives with complete disrespect for everyone and everything else. In Vancouver this often takes the form of well to do Asian, South Asian, and White kids who purport to live their lives like Faux Inner City Black Gangstas.

Well, I'm very happy to report that there are exceptions to the rule. Staying with me this summer is an 18 year old Mexican teenager named Danny. I've known him since he was seven but I've never been so proud of him as I have this past weekend. So much happened but here are the highlights:

We hauled 17 monitors out of storage, including some old 19" ones that were 55 lbs!

Moved a large dining table and chairs from my uncle's place in Ladner.

And through it all Danny didn't complain once, didn't avoid work once, and didn't once ask when we'd be done. What a fine young fellow!

Sidebar: The most amusing part of his time here is the way 95% of people react when I tell them that he's from Mexico. The reaction is consistently the same: A curious stare, followed by an expression of disbelief, and then either asking me if I'm joking or asserting that "he doesn't look like any Mexican person I've ever seen".

Thursday, June 26, 2008

In searching for information of the Shangri-La, I discovered a fascinating website called SkyscraperPage.com. While Vancouver is 5th in the World in total number of skyscrapers, its buildings are tiny compared to others in the world. Here's a comparison:

This live motion art statue sits above the Kitsilano swimming pool:Here's a close-up view of the almost completed Shangri-La tower, which is the tallest building in Vancouver:Danny captured this fantastic photo:

Quick now, which country is the leading supplier of petroleum to the United States? Wrong.

It's not Saudi Arabia. It is Canada by a long shot.

This year so far, the U.S. has imported more than 2.5 million barrels a day from Canada, compared with 1.5 million from the despotic desert kingdom. Last year, imports from Canada totaled 2.4 million barrels a day, compared with 1.4 million from the Saudis.

Don't take our word for it. These are figures from the June 13 report of the Energy Information Administration, which bills itself as the disseminator of official energy statistics from the U.S. government.

Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama might want to review these numbers carefully before he again condemns Canada's leading export as a "dirty, dwindling and dangerously expensive" 19th-century fossil fuel. It also happens to be the elixir of life for the U.S. economy and will continue to be long after Obama has left the Oval office -- if he ever gets there. But Obama's energy adviser, Jason Grumet, has warned that climate change trumps oil, specifically oil from Alberta's oilsands. The production of oil from the oilsands generates about three times more greenhouses gases compared to production of conventional oil, according to U.S. environmentalists.

Obama has promised to cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil by 35 per cent by 2030 and invest $150 billion US in alternative energy. "The possibilities of renewable energy are limitless," he said in Las Vegas this week. To flip Obama's campaign slogan, that's change we can't believe in. It should've stayed in Vegas.

As we have seen with President George W. Bush's effort to enhance U.S. energy security by investing in ethanol, not only are there limits to alternative energy, but disaster results from uninformed, misguided policies.

Should the U.S. follow Obama's reckless route, Canada will have no lack of customers for its oil, which will remain the world's principal energy source for many decades. But without Canadian supplies, the U.S. will become increasingly dependent on hostile or unpredictable regimes such as those of Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria, Angola and Russia.

Obama's attack on Canada's oil industry on the heels of his pledge to abrogate or renegotiate the North America Free Trade Agreement does not augur well for Canada-U.S. relations should he succeed in his bid to occupy the White House. If his recent comments accurately reflect the direction he intends to take his country, he will put the U.S. in peril, stifle economic growth, lower Americans' standard of living and undermine the most important trading relationship in the western hemisphere.

He has a few months to sharpen up his policies and groom his team before the presidential campaign is in full swing. Replacing his energy adviser would be a good start.

Fresh off the heels of the Mark Steyn & Maclean's free speech travesty, comes a new story from Canuckistan's [Ultra] Left Coast. We now learn that Lorna Pardy, the woman in the middle here

has gained the right to assault & provoke another person and yet if that person defends themselves verbally or physically then Ms. Pardy has the full support of the government to persecute this person.

Don't believe me? Then watch this:

How far into the Twilight Zone has British Columbia traveled?!?

Here's the BC "Human Rights" document covering this case. The first sentence of Section 15 glares out like a beacon. It reads, "In this case, Ms. Pardy is a member of two protected groups, because of her sex and her sexual orientation."

Isn't it ironic that around the same time that Nelson Mandela is turning 90 and is being celebrated the world over that a New Apartheid has cast it's ugly shadow over British Columbia and Canada. Doesn't that just make you extra proud to be a Canadian this July 1st?! Do you sense a large earthquake coming?

Update: I learned this afternoon that The Vancouver Province gave this story front page coverage and the Vancouver Sun fairly prominent coverage. Perhaps this is their way of making up for their lame coverage of the Mark Steyn / Maclean's fiasco. Or maybe they realize just how scary things have become in this province.

Premier Gordon Campbell will be appearing on Bill Good's show on CKNW tomorrow morning at 8:30am. Please do give him a call (604.280.9898) and ask him why he is not doing a damn thing to stop this atrocity.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

My friend, Sharon, related to me that last summer Vancouver supposedly had no more than 4 consecutive days of sunshine. I don't know if that's factually accurate but today is definitely the 4th straight day of great weather!

With this being the Post #2,001 of my blog, I wanted it to be on a topic of supreme importance.

During the recent Maclean's / Mark Steyn Kangaroo Court fiasco, I saw comments from countless Americans exclaiming how anything like that could happen south of the 49th Parallel. I urged them to not rest on their laurels, for if there's one thing Canadians have learned this year it's that free speech is not a guaranteed right.

Fast forward less than a month and this editorial caught my attention. It focuses on Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrat leadership supporting the "Fairness Doctrine". Of course, this is simply a euphemism meaning something very different in practice. In truth, it's the "American Censorship Doctrine", giving the American Federal Communications Commission the ability to completely control all content broadcast over the public airwaves.

If this repressive act becomes law then it will effectively silence many right-of-center radio talk show hosts, which is the ultimate aim of Pelosi and her ilk.

Censorship, Censorship, Censorship - The founders of America must be spinning in their graves.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

By the early afternoon the cobwebs in my head were preventing me from thinking clearly. So Danny & I went on a bike ride around False Creek and downtown to Stanley Park. On days like this, I love living in this city!

Hat tip to my friend, V, for directing me to this story. It's about 10 sets of seniors on Vancouver Island who have been living in a waterfront trailer park but will be evicted next year.

Some facts:

None own the land that their mobile homes sit on.

Each has been paying about $3,400 per year in rent, which works out to $283.33 per month.

Of course I have sympathy for each individual senior. But to try to paint the new land owners or the government as villains is beyond ridiculousness and unfair. I think most anyone in Canada would appreciate being able to live on waterfront property for less than $300 per month. But when did renting property give one the right to live there forever?

Furthermore, saving on rent for so long, what did these people do with all the money they were saving on rent? Was it invested wisely or spent otherwise? Are the tax dollars of those seniors who skimped on luxuries and vacations all of their lives supposed to bail out those who did not?

I realize that in asking these tough questions, I probably come across as an uncaring bastard. Not so. In my work with BCDD I've come across many seniors like this. For various reasons, they've spent most of their savings all their lives and are practically impoverished by the time they reached retirement. Some may have been swindled, some may have had other unfortunate incidents occur but one has to wonder if many just never thought ahead beyond the "fun years". Now that they're in the predicament they're in, to what degree is the government (which means you & me) supposed to bail them out?

Local Vancouver Time

Common Sense Quotations

Current Weather

Current Vancouver Weather

Burrard Street Bridge

Downtown Vancouver

Lions Gate Bridge

Iron Workers Memorial Bridge

About Moi

"Pelalusa" is a glorious Spanish-sounding word that means ... well ... absolutely nothing! The word doesn't actually exist. But it sure sounds like it means something!!
While living in Mexico City in 1996/97 I would often ask my friends the meaning of this word and that. One day I asked what "pelalusa" meant, for it just 'sounded' like a word that would mean something en Español. But alas, it does not.

What's With The Ads?

I've launched a new website called Pelalusa.com. Eventually it'll become a fully fledged social networking site but for now it's just a fun travel site, showcasing my journeys and photography. I hope you enjoy it and I always welcome suggestions to improve it.

This new site will be advertising sponsored. What's different about it though is that 50% of the profits (eventually increasing towards 100%) will be donated to philanthropic efforts such as BC Digital Divide. It'll be a global effort, with a particular focus on technology and education.

So I decided to also allow the ads on here too. Please know that I have no control over their content. If some ad does catch your interest, at least you know where the money will be going.

Day & Night

Favourite Quotes

When I was around 12 years old I wrote the following: "Too many get caught up in the noise of everyday life to hear the symphony of what life is really all about."

"The bigger the government grows, the smaller the individual becomes." -- Dennis Prager

"When you take away a person's need to provide for themselves, you take away their humanity." -- Damon Rexroad

"Life is a gift, not an obligation. So make the very best of every single day you're given!" - Donovan Campbell

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money to spend." -- Margaret Thatcher

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." -- Ronald Reagan

Archive.org

If you'd like to see an amazing site that is full of old commercials, radio programs, and a host of other fascinating memorabilia then click here.

The Cluetrain Manifesto

The Internet is causing an amazing transition to occur about how individuals interact with the companies that they buy from and work for. Most companies are still in denial about even the presence of this change, much to their own peril.
Shown here are the 95 Theses' of the Cluetrain Manifesto:

Smile Time

Multimedia

I've collected together a number of my best flower photos. Each of them has more than sufficient resolution for printing, even as an enlargement. You can download a 46MB Zip file containing many photos by clicking on this image: